You’ll most likely be interviewed for an entry level position such as junior, assistant or associate game designer.
However, after working as a professional game designer in a studio for a couple of years, it’s much easier to get hired because your peers will be able to vouch for your skills, and it’s also easier to find jobs.
Until then, think of getting through game design interviews as a skill that will help you show off your process, preferences, and potential.
There is a reason why you are asked certain questions in a game designer interview. Read on to learn more about this process.
To help you do better in game design interviews, I’ll tell you what questions they will ask and how you should answer them. This will help you get ready for the interviews.
There are a lot of different ways to design a game, and they all fit into the main loop. There are also a lot of other game developers who make music, sound effects, and graphics that help the main loop.
Let’s talk about the main types of content and systems design in this article. We’ll focus on entry-level game design jobs, which are usually generalist jobs.
Before you get to the actual designer later, it’s mostly mass filtering up to this point, and most of the filtering is done by an ATS system, recruiters, and hiring managers.
By the way, as you read this post, feel free to join #career-guidance channel in Funsmith Club Discord where you can seek advice from game devs of all levels including me on.
Here, you can also be notified every week of the newest game design job openings and useful tips
Interviewing for a video game designer role can be an intimidating process, You’ll need to demonstrate both your creative abilities and technical skills, Preparing detailed answers to common video game designer interview questions is key to landing your dream design job
In this comprehensive guide we’ll cover everything you need to know to crush your next design interview, including
- An overview of the video game designer interview process
- Common video game designer interview questions with sample answers
- Tips for communicating your qualifications effectively
- Strategies to show off your design skills and expertise
What to Expect in a Video Game Designer Interview
The video game designer interview process typically involves multiple rounds including
Initial Phone Screen – A recruiter will screen you with some basic questions about your background. This call decides if you’ll move forward.
Technical Interview – You’ll be asked detailed technical questions to assess your hands-on design skills.
Design Challenge – You’ll complete a sample design challenge relevant to the role. This tests your approach to solving real design problems.
Culture Interview – Assess if you’re a culture fit. You’ll chat with potential teammates about work styles and team dynamics.
Final Interview – Last round with the hiring manager. You’ll review your skills, experience and salary expectations.
Throughout the process, the employer evaluates both your hard and soft skills. Technical proficiency is crucial, but you also need to demonstrate strong communication, collaboration and problem-solving abilities.
Thorough preparation and practicing responses out loud are key to presenting your best self.
Common Video Game Designer Interview Questions and Answers
Let’s look at some of the most frequent video game designer interview questions, along with effective strategies for answering each type:
Questions About You and Your Experience
These questions aim to learn more about your background and qualifications:
Q: Why do you want to work here?
A: Express genuine enthusiasm for the company’s games and culture. Reference specific titles you’ve enjoyed playing and aspects of the work environment that appeal to you.
Q: What interested you in a game design career?
A: Share when your passion for gaming began and how you started developing design skills. Perhaps you modded existing games or created games for fun with friends. Convey your lifelong dedication to the craft.
Q: What design skills do you bring to the table?
A: Highlight hard skills like level design, systems design, UX design, etc. Mention soft skills like creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and project management. Draw connections to the role requirements.
Q: What’s your greatest accomplishment so far as a designer?
A: Pick an impressive design project, such as a shipped game, popular mod or student project with unique mechanics. Explain your specific contributions and how it exemplified your skills.
Q: How do you handle projects not going as planned?
A: Positively framing challenges displays professionalism and resilience. Explain how you identify issues early, collaborate with others on solutions, and readjust timelines or scopes if needed.
Questions About Your Design Approach
These assess your design philosophy and process:
Q: How do you come up with game ideas?
A: Discuss techniques like competitor analysis, exploring new technologies, mining pop culture trends, and building on personal gameplay experiences.
Q: Walk me through your process for designing game mechanics.
A: Showcase a methodical approach, like documenting goals first, brainstorming creative ideas, prototyping and playtesting concepts, then refining based on feedback.
Q: How do you balance innovation and familiarity in a game’s design?
A: Communicate the importance of giving players new experiences while relating mechanics back to recognizable genres and controls. Use examples from well-designed games.
Q: How do you determine if a game mechanic is fun versus frustrating?
A: Identify playtesting as the best methodology. Discuss iterating on mechanics while getting player feedback at every stage from concept to post-launch.
Q: How do you design games to be accessible to a broad audience?
A: Propose ideas like adjustable difficulty levels, customizable controls, colorblind-friendly UIs, and subtitles/closed captions. Show you understand the importance of inclusion.
Technical and Knowledge-Based Questions
Expect to be quizzed on your hands-on design expertise:
Q: What game development tools are you proficient with?
A: Name any relevant tools listed in the job description, such as Unity, Unreal, Maya, etc. Mention whether you have professional or hobbyist experience with each.
Q: Can you explain how pathfinding algorithms work?
A: Provide a simple, high-level overview of how pathfinding systems operate. Use examples like A*, dijkstra’s algorithm or nav meshes. Admit if your knowledge is limited.
Q: How would you go about designing an inventory system?
A: Discuss key considerations like number of slots, item stacking, weight limits, storage management, player accessibility, and coding implementation.
Q: What principles guide good tutorial design in games?
A: Identify concepts like teaching basic controls first, allowing players to skip steps, progressively increasing challenge, and avoiding information overload.
For technical questions on complex topics, it’s fine to say you have limited experience if that’s truthful. Convey eagerness to learn on the job.
Questions About the Company and Role
These evaluate your interest in the job:
Q: What interests you about this role?
A: Spotlight 2-3 alluring aspects of the job posting, like the genre you’d work on, the seniority level, or the studio’s unique culture.
Q: What do you think this position’s most important responsibilities are?
A: Carefully assess the job description and highlight 1-2 core design accountabilities they’re hiring for. This shows you understand the role.
Q: Are you more interested in working on gameplay, narratives, or something else? Why?
A: Honestly share your design passions while conveying openness to the needs of the role. If your interests don’t align well with the job, it may not be a fit.
Q: What would your dream project be?
A: Provide an intriguing concept that highlights your creative vision yet seems feasible. Align it with the company’s capabilities and portfolio.
Q: What concerns do you have about this job?
A: Limit concerns to minor aspects like a new software to learn. Don’t raise major red flags about work you won’t want to do. Stay positive.
Behavioral and Situational Questions
These present hypothetical scenarios to evaluate your judgment:
Q: Your design is not well received by the art team. How do you handle this?
A: Emphasize collaborating with the art team to understand their perspective, then incorporating their feedback to improve the design.
Q: A tight deadline is approaching. What do you do?
A: Show you’re realistic yet focused under pressure. Discuss solutions like consulting teammates to help unblock you, working overtime in the evenings or weekends, or re-scoping less critical features.
Q: You feel another designer’s system design will negatively impact the user experience. What now?
A: Outline respectfully discussing your UX concerns with them and proposing an alternative. Focus on the game’s best interests.
Q: Your team is divided on which design direction to pursue. What do you do?
A: Suggest compromises to incorporate everyone’s ideas, like pursuing both options in separate game modes. Bring the team together.
Address each scenario professionally. Demonstrate critical thinking and strong teamwork above all else.
Tips for Acing Your Video Game Design Interview
Beyond preparing solid answers, these strategies will help you make a stellar impression:
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Practice aloud to refine your delivery. Get feedback from colleagues.
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Show enthusiasm through positive body language and tone. Smile and make eye contact.
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Ask smart questions to show your engagement. Inquire about development processes or team dynamics.
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Review your portfolio and be ready to discuss relevant pieces. Tie projects back to the role’s requirements.
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Send thank you notes after any final round interviews. Briefly reinforce your qualifications.
With meticulous preparation and genuine passion, you’ll be equipped to maximize your interview performance and join the talented world of professional game designers. Now that you know what questions to expect, it’s time to practice and land your dream design job!
How do studios conduct game design interviews?
It’s different for each studio, but the following are generally true for most of the standard ways studios hire people:
The first thing you’ve already done to show that you’re a good candidate is get to the interview stage.
Cover letter & resume – These are the initial touch points when recruiters are filtering for candidates.
Portfolio for game design—Before you hear back, your portfolio needs to grab their attention and show proof of what they look for.
Game design test—Most studios send design tests to you before you even talk to a developer.
Before you get to the actual designer, it’s mostly mass filtering up to this point, and most of that filtering is done by an ATS system, recruiters, and hiring managers.
When it comes to the interview, the talent-screening process is just getting started. This means that the studio has to send developers to test the candidates who made it through the earlier rounds.
Most likely, you will talk to a recruiter or hiring manager first, before you talk to a developer.
Keep in mind that they have to filter candidates at scale. The most valuable time is the game developers’ time.
But it’s hard for studios to tell if candidates are a good fit for the skills, brand, and culture of the company without the game developers being involved.
This is why 90% of applications are thrown out before they reach the game developers who are actually making the games.
Expect the following formats in the sequential order as you move closer to job offer:
- They ask a question, and you answer it (we’ll talk more about this later).
- Live mock design session: Act out a situation where you can show how you find and fix design issues. (harder to fake).
- A skill fit interview will be done with you by a group of game developers working on the project to see if your skills and experience are a good fit for their needs. You will have an interview with the game developers you will be working with a lot to see if they like working with you.
This is something else Richard Carillo talks about in his 2018 GDC talk when he gives interviewers
You can use this design framework if you don’t have any clear ones to use. I used it all through my career.
Checkout these game design interview tips and process overview to help you better navigate the interview process.
Here is an x-ray vision into how the game design hiring process works in most game studios.
Big picture and brand questions
I wouldn’t expect to see these questions in the interview for a junior or mid-level designer. They just aren’t relevant to most designer’s day to day work.
When I hire people for senior, lead, and director roles, I would expect them to know about these ideas and have some ideas about how they would go about putting them into practice.
Example Questions:
Question 32: How would you define and protect the core design pillars of our game?
This question is HIGHLY variable from studio to studio and game to game. The best answers will showcase personal experience ensuring consistency and design fit across multiple disciplines.
Which do you think was the most popular game in the last 12 months and which do you think was the most poorly received? Can you explain why one was popular and the other wasn’t?
Finding out if you’ve kept up with the market is what this question is all about. Also, do you play failed or niche games along with popular ones?
When you don’t have much time, it’s easy to start playing only carefully chosen games. However, playing weaker games will remind you of the fundamentals you need to nail in your game.
Question 34: How would you develop a new IP for our studio?
I wouldn’t expect to be asked this question unless I was starting a new project at a new studio or was a very senior member of a large company putting together a team.
In either case, you need to make a link between the company’s goals, the audience’s wants, and your ability to carry them out here.
Question 35: How would you lead a monetization and in-app purchases team for Project X?
Again, a junior designer would never be given something so important, but an experienced designer might need to take over this important area and be trusted with it.
Do not forget to know about the different cost center, income, and incentive models and how they affect game play, design, and content creation.
Top 18 Game Designer Interview Questions and Answers in 2024
FAQ
How do you ace a game design interview?
What is the most important question a designer must answer when creating a successful video game?
How do you answer a video game design interview question?
Video game design is a fast-paced industry, and employers want to know that you’re committed to keeping your skills up-to-date. Use this question as an opportunity to show the interviewer how passionate you are about video games and how you use new trends to improve your work.
How do you prepare for a game design interview?
Game designers envision almost every element of a video game, including characters, missions, storytelling, visual designs and user interface layout. Exploring example interview questions for this creative role can help you prepare for a potential interview.
How many interview questions do game designers ask?
In this article, we list 15 general game designer interview questions, detail 15 questions about experience and background, share 15 in-depth questions about specific game designing duties and provide several example questions with sample answers.
What questions should you ask during a game development interview?
During interviews with game developers and designers, recruiters ask questions that help them assess both the soft skills and technical expertise necessary for the job. Therefore, you can benefit from reviewing common questions that you may encounter during a game development interview.
